The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals is trying to shut down the John J. Hainkel, Jr. home .

The move comes after numerous state probes into complaints there and a WDSU I-Team investigation last February.

The state revoked the Hainkel Home’s license and notified officials that Medicaid funding will be cut off later this month.

Attorneys for the nonprofit organization that operates the facility have appealed and said they are turning to a higher court for help.

At issue is not just the allegations regarding patient care, but whether the home was given due process.

Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals Bruce Greenstein sent Hainkel's managers notification that their license has been revoked and that the state will no longer pay Medicaid claims as of Sept. 28.

“It's not common that we have to revoke a license for a nursing home, and that we do it after great deliberation and great care,” Greenstein said. “We want to make sure that our first and foremost -- our most sacred responsibility, is we have is the health and safety of people and facilities that we regulate and pay for.”

The home, which is on Henry Clay Avenue, has been in operation since 1891. It was run by the state for some time, but 18 months ago, lawmakers decided to lease it to a private nonprofit board called The New Orleans Home for Incurables.

Since then, the DHH said it has visited multiple times, spending more than $70,000 investigating complaints.

“We have cited six instances of immediate jeopardy and they cover different types of findings -- verbal jeopardy was one of our immediate jeopardy findings, patient care was one as well,” Greenstein said.

The complaints were detailed in a state report obtained by the WDSU I-Team.

According to investigators, in May, the facility “failed to protect and prevent verbal abuse to a resident” when an office manager who had been suspended, pending an investigation into misappropriation of resident funds, allegedly re-entered the facility and yelled at a blind patient, taking $800 from her.

In March, investigators said they found that the facility “failed to meet professional standards of care by failing to obtain weekly weights as ordered by the physician” when a resident lost nearly 25 pounds over four months.

Other investigations late last year revealed that “the facility failed to ensure an alleged incident of abuse/neglect was reported within 24 hours” when a patient suffered second-degree burns during her shower. The state also cited problems with the boiler.

Investigators also found that the home’s operators “failed to implement their abuse policy by failing to take written statements from staff as required by law” after a patient suffered from seizures was allegedly left alone in her room.

Also noted in the report was that that Hainkel Home “failed to ensure nurses administered medications to meet the needs of each resident.”

James Cobb, an attorney for the Hainkel Home, said he wants to know why the DHH is trying to close the facility over deficiencies that, he said, have been corrected.

“There is not a single deficiency, that the state has found in this nursing home for over a year that impacts patient safety or patient care -- none of them. These are deficiencies that are technical in nature, that are record-keeping. Have we crossed the right t and dotted the right,” Cobb said.

“Every nursing home in the state has deficiencies -- many, many more than we have and many more serious than we have, and none of them have had their license revoked. And my question is, ‘Why?’”

Cobb said the problems are not systemic. The manager who was accused of taking money was arrested and fired, he said.

“It means we had one bad apple. And we got rid of that bad apple,” Cobb said.

The staff member who was involved in the incident where the resident was burned was also replaced.

“The state deptartment is attempting to revoke our license without having followed any of the procedural mechanisms for protection of nursing homes or nursing home residents,” Cobb said.

The license revocation and Medicaid termination letters were sent out before the informal dispute resolution hearing, which is scheduled for Thursday.

“They want to take our license before we take an appeal, which is a violation of federal due process,” Cobb said. “It is totally not normal. Every single part of the procedure that the state has attempted to implement here is abnormal.”

Cobb said he has appealed the state’s decision and asked for a federal injunction to stop the closure. In the meantime, state law requires the nursing home to tell the remaining 79 patients what’s happening.

“Why is the state rushing to judgment when patient's lives are at stake?” Cobb said.

Cobb said it’s been medically proven that moving some of the residents could be dangerous.

“I want to know what the agenda is,” Cobb said. “What exactly do you plan to do with this nursing home that you empty of sick old people, been there 15 or 20 years? What are you going to do with the property?”

Cobb questions where the 136 Hainkel Home employees will work if the home closes, too.

The issue is scheduled to go before a federal civil court judge on Oct. 12.

The DHH said the facility has been in jeopardy of losing its federal Medicare funding more than four times.